20) Sean Penn

Spicoli scores again! This is the first time Madonna’s former life partner made the list since: 2002, but his publicity trip to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was just too good to pass up.

Just think about it: Here we have a very liberal, very pompous actor whose first thought after seeing mega-disaster on TV is, “I bet I could get a lot of press out of this if I went to New Orleans.”

So, “I am Sam,” went out to New Orleans and apparently, he’s looking to play an action hero, because he manages to get himself photographed running around with a shotgun. He’s just oozing machismo, isn’t he?

Then, as if he hadn’t been conspicuous enough, he decided to try to attract some more attention to himself by hopping in his boat and going out looking for stranded people. One problem: the boat sprang a leak. Which leads us to our defining picture:

:

And a defining quote from a bystander looking at Penn’s leaking — (and fully packed) boat…

19) The Huffington Post

What do you get when you take a bunch of C-List celebrities, irritating politicians, and liberal hacks, almost none of whom are talented writers, and put them all together in one place? Why, you get the Huffington Post where “enormous talents” like Deepak Chopra, Cindy Sheehan, and Larry David write the same drivel that appears on other left-wing blogs, only with 50% less zing, pop, and entertainment value.

The only golden peanut in the huge pile of elephant droppings that is the Huffpo is Maxim editor: Greg Gutfeld, who has a blast skewering the other writers. Because he’s the most talented guy there, it’s only fair to use a defining quote from Gutfeld:

Defining Quote:: “I now realize that Huffpo is like a bug zapper. It attracts all the pests in your big backyard to one little blog where they can be safely ignored while they die their little bug deaths. It’s what I call the Huffpo Attractive Nuisance Strategy.”

18) Helen Thomas

Despite the fact that Helen Thomas is no longer even a reporter, she is still allowed to haunt White House press conferences like some sort of ghost of biased journalists’ past. This is despite her nasty attitude and the anti-war sloganeering that she likes to disguise as questions for White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan.

Undoubtedly, the White House would have refused to allow her into Press Conferences long ago if not for the fact that she regularly makes such a braying jackass of herself that she single-handedly lessens the public’s respect for the hostile and irritating White House press corp.

On the other hand, maybe Helen Thomas won’t be around any more after 2008 if Dick Cheney changes his mind about trying for the brass ring…

Defining Quote:: “The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself. All we need is one more liar.” —Helen Thomas

17) The Daily Kos

Markos Moulitsas Z’niga and his merry band of moonbat diarists over at theDaily Kos: make great, although still annoying, copy. In fact, they’re so entertaining that you really don’t have to do much more than quote them.

“What I am going to say now is that there are thousands who are dying and dead. They will be scandal and rioting and rightly so in my opinion as the “Negroes” of New Orleans and tourists were left to drown.”

Then there was another Daily Kos diarist who thought it was completely plausible that the levies in New Orleans were: deliberately blown:

“This accusation that the levees were blown for political reasons fits with an overall pattern consistantly persued by this administration. Indeed, it fits with the objectives outlined by many in the neo-con camp, with the past support of the Bush family of eugenics, and with the recent callous remarks…”

“Defining Quote: We need terror. We need horror. We need the streets running awash in rivers of blood of these thugs and criminals and zealots. Activism didn’t prevent 60,000 deaths in Vietnam. All the activism of the Civil Rights era has gotten African Americans precisely nowhere. Segregation may not be the law of the land anymore, but it’s still the de facto state of America.

When y’all want to start throwing molotovs and sniping from windows come and talk to me. Until then, I will be content to retire, be a hermit, and laugh at everyone. Even then, I may still just feel like laughing as the world falls apart around me, but at least I’ll be willing to listen.”

Yes, it’s posts like these that have helped make the Daily Kos the most popular and annoying liberal blog on the planet.

16) Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton

The peanut farmer and the pervert almost always make the list for breaking tradition and criticizing the current POTUS. However, Republicans are fortunate that they stay in the public eye because it continuously reminds the American people of what lousy Presidents they were.

Clinton spent his presidency blundering from one ethics scandal to the next with his pants around his ankles and Carter was a naive bungler who has gotten progressively flakier throughout the years.

Republicans occasionally send up stinkers to the White House, too, but at least former Presidents like Gerald Ford and George Bush, Sr. aren’t monkeying around in politics every day stirring up memories of how they couldn’t cut it in the White House.

Defining Quote:: “Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process. There’s no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president.” –: Jimmy Carter

Defining Quote:: “Taking a page from their tsunami playbook, the White House announced today that former presidents Bush and Bill Clinton will head up the fundraising efforts for the hurricane relief. And you know, Bill Clinton is no stranger to this kind of thing. He was once visiting the French Quarter during a hurricane and got blown behind a dumpster.” –: Bill Maher

15) Mary Mapes

Last year, Dan Rather made the most obnoxious liberals list for his relentless promotion and defense of the fake National Guard Memos CBS was flogging. Given that Dan Rather was widely panned for his involvement in “Memogate” and that he no longer has a job at CBS, you’d think everyone else tied into those fake memos would be content to let the whole episode drift into the memory hole.

But, no, bizarrely, disgraced producer Mary Mapes, who was unceremoniously fired by CBS for the part she played in Memogate, decided to permanently tie herself to the story by writing a book that defended the memos as real and attacking the bloggers who proved it was a forgery.

The book was actually titled,: “Truth and Duty, the Press, the President and the Privilege of Power,”: but the readers over at: Rathergate: had some better suggestions for a title including:

‘The Mapes of Wrath,’ ‘How to Fail in Journalism without Really Trying,’ ‘Looking for Mr. GoodForger,’: and of course,: ‘The Greatest Fake but Accurate Story Ever Told.’

All of this is certainly embarrassing and cringeworthy, but Mapes guaranteed her spot on this list by actually asserting in a: Good Morning America: interview that it’s not the responsibility of the media to prove to the public that its stories are true, it’s the responsibility of the public to prove that its stories are false to the satisfaction of the media.

Defining Conversation:: Ross:: “After 12 days of defending them, CBS and Dan Rather later admitted they could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents and that they should not have been used and the story should not have aired.

“Do you still think that story was true?”

Mapes:: “The story? Absolutely.”

Ross:: “This seems remarkable to me that you would sit here now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards.”

Mapes:: “I’m perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there’s proof that I haven’t seen.”

Ross:: “But isn’t it the other way around? Don’t you have to prove they’re authentic?”

Mapes:: “Well, I think that’s what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false, yet.”

Ross:: “Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn’t that really what journalists do?”

Mapes:: “No, I don’t think that’s the standard.”

14) Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd, the ranting New York Times columnist whom Democratic Senator Zell Miller once famously referred to as a, “high brow hussy,” wrote abook: this year moaning how relationships between men and women in America are all screwed up because she hasn’t gotten married yet. Hmmmm, Dowd is well paid, famous, and not bad looking for her age. So, what’s left that could explain why she hasn’t gotten married?

Perhaps this defining quote from a piece on her in: The Age: will give us a hint:

Defining Quote:: “Dowd says she doesn’t mind that George W. Bush has nicknamed her “the Cobra”, and she probably likes being called “the flame-haired flamethrower”, but she hates all monikers that involve knives or other sharp objects. “I have a fear of castration,” she explains. “Not fear of being castrated but fear of castrating.” This from a woman who once referred to Al Gore as “practically lactating.”

So we have a grindingly obnoxious woman with castration fantasies who just wrote a book called,: Are Men Necessary?: and men aren’t falling all over themselves to propose? It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?

13) The Pro-Tookie Williams Protestors

Tookie Williams, who happily has now been executed, was never actually a very sympathetic character. He was a cold blooded killer who snuffed out 4 lives and never admitted his guilt or apologized to the families of his victims. Moreover, he co-founded the Crips, one of the biggest human scum piles ever to exist in North America and even after he had supposedly reformed, he never gave the police any help in clearing up the numerous Crip related crimes he must have known about.

Yet, because Tookie wrote a few lousy children’s books that about 12 people read, there were celebrities coming out of the woodwork to plead for his life. Right before Tookie was executed, you could hardly turn on the TV without seeing or hearing about big names like Ed Asner, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, Jackson Browne, Mario Cuomo, Ted Danson, Snoop Dogg, Mike Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Tom Harkin, Jesse Jackson, Bianca Jagger, Jim McDermott, the NAACP, Bonnie Raitt, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Gloria Steinem, and Desmond Tutu pleading for Tookie to be spared.

But what about the families of the people who were murdered by Tookie Williams? What about the thousands of families of people who have been murdered by other Crips? I guess if they want sympathy from the NAACP and celebrities, they should get to work on a children’s book, because wanting justice for a murdered family member apparently doesn’t do the trick.

Defining Picture:

Hat tip to: Zombietime, who took that pic of a Bush hater at a “Save Tookie” rally at San Quentin right before Williams was sent to meet his maker.

12) Harry Reid

Did Harry Reid have to: shut down the Senate: with a ridiculous publicity stunt? Did he have to break Senate tradition by threatening to filibuster the judges Bush selects for the Supreme Court? Did he have to lie and claim Social Security is in great shape and doesn’t need to be reformed?

Worse yet, did he have to tell this: ridiculous story: on national television that he probably made up from scratch?

“A few weeks ago, I joined some friends of mine for a bite to eat at The Nugget – Searchlight’s only restaurant. We were sitting down in a booth, when a young boy, about 10-years-old, named Devon walked up to us.

Carrying a skateboard under his arm, he said, “Senator Reid, when I grow up I want to be just like you.”

Well, the truth is Devon could probably do a lot better.”

You mean the kid could aim higher than being the chief obstructionist in a political party that’s slowly circling the drain in the bathtub of America’s body politic? No kidding.

Defining Quote:: “Harry Reid wants Bush to fire Rove; would also like to magically regain the Senate majority, a simple solution to Iraq, to be 20 years younger, and free cookies” —Fark

11) Randi Rhodes

Randi Rhodes is Air America’s flakiest liberal host, which is sort of like being the dirtiest pig at a hog farm. Maybe it’s nothing to be proud of, but it sure takes some doing. In Rhodes case, not only is she a trench harpy with a nasty disposition, she’s also a conspiracy theorist with a peculiar sense of humor. For example, take this “classic”: comedy bit: from her show:

“Defining Quote:: A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn’t safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here’s your answer, you ungrateful whelp: Just try it, you little b*stard. .”

That Randi Rhodes: she’s just a laugh a minute riot, isn’t she?

10) Ted Rall

What would a most annoying liberals list be without Ted Rall, a man who showed up somewhere on the list every year and actually took top honors back in 2003? Unfortunately for Ted, he has been so distasteful, disagreeable, and just plain nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying for so long that it’s almost impossible for him to top himself.

Still, Ted has been busy this year being … well … Ted, and he has really had it in for America’s soldiers.

Not only did he: urge: liberals to: “drop the ‘support the troops’ shtick now,”: he put together a: grotesque cartoon: that essentially accused Iraqi war vets of being rapists and torturers. Then to top it all off, Rall wrote this…

Defining Quote:: “Soldiers, they say, must obey orders. However, “just following orders” wasn’t an acceptable excuse at the Nuremberg trials, where the charges included waging a war of aggression. Do our government’s poorly paid contract killers deserve our “support” for blindly following orders?” –: Ted Rall

9) The Mainstream Media’s Katrina Coverage

When it comes to the coverage of Katrina by the mainstream media, the question isn’t what did they get wrong, it’s what did they get right? It’s bad enough that the media shamelessly blamed FEMA for almost every single problem that happened while ignoring the culpability of the locals because they were Democrats, but the press was also about as careful with the facts as the Weekly World News is in one of their stories about Batboy. The press wildly exaggerated the overall number of deaths (They were more than 9000 high), the number of deaths in the Superdome, the: racial make-up: of the people who died, you name it. The way the media covered Katrina was a lowpoint in American journalism and this slightly edited parody from South Park mocks it perfectly:

Reporter:: Tom, I’m currently 10 miles outside of Beaverton, unable to get inside the town proper. We do not have any reports of fatalities yet, but we believe the death toll may be in the hundreds of millions. Beaverton has a population of only about 8,000, Tom, so this would be quite devastating.

Anchor:: Any word on how the survivors in the town are doing, Mitch?

Reporter:: We’re not sure what is going on inside the town of Beaverton, Tom, but we’re reporting that there’s looting, raping, and even acts of cannibalism.

Anchor:: My God, you’ve actually seen people looting, raping, and eating each other?

But, at least Newsweek eventually admitted that they got it wrong and retracted the story. Maybe they can send the families of the people who died a complimentary subscription to Newsweek to try to make-up for their “boo-boo.”

Defining Quote:: “The media does in fact have an impressive fact-checking system. If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they’re not spreading propaganda.

But… if the quote or purported fact portrays those things in a negative light, it pretty much gets into print with only the most cursory once-over by the editors. If it agrees with their basic world-view — if it feels “right” in their gut — then it runs. Fact-checking comes later…” –: Ace of Spades HQ: on Newsweek’s retraction of their claim that the Koran was defiled at Guantanamo.

7) Dick Durbin

Defining Quote:: “On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ….. On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime–Pol Pot or others–that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.” — Democratic Senator: Dick Durbin

Yes, with one poorly thought out statement, Dick Durbin, the Democratic Whip in the Senate, managed not only to slur our troops doing interrogations by accusing them of being as bad as the torturers in some of the worst regimes in history, he also simultaneously sent a message to Al-Qaeda saying that Americans are such paper tiger wussies that we even get squeamish about making terrorists who want to kill us a little hot or cold.

Great job, Dick.

6) Blanco, Nagin, Landrieu, and Eddie Compass: Oh, my!

New Orleans was doubly unfortunate on the day that Hurricane Katrina slammed down on them. Not only was the city built below sea level, but it seems like almost everyone in a position of authority in the entire state from the governor on down were the sort of incompetent, 4th rate, clown college drop-outs you wouldn’t trust to run a lemonade stand, much less a state.

Governor Kathleen Blanco turned in the worst performance by a government official since Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Nagin seemed to spend most of his time complaining that the Feds weren’t evacuating people fast enough while the city’s buses were left to rot in the flooding. Meanwhile, despite the fact that members of the New Orleans police department deserted their posts, got caught on film looting, and were completely unable to keep order, police superintendent Eddie Compass and Nagin decided to send them on a vacation to Las Vegas while the National Guard kept order. Louisiana Senator: Mary Landrieu: also uttered this defining quote:

Defining Quote:: If one person criticizes [our sheriffs], or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me – one more word about it after this show airs and I – I might likely have to punch him – literally.”

If the whole lot of them don’t have the good grace to follow Eddie Compass, who did the right thing and quit, they should all be voted out of office.

5) John Murtha

John “Cut and Run” Murtha is grindingly annoying not just because he wants American soldiers to tuck their tails between their legs and run from Al-Qaeda as fast as possible in Iraq, but also because of the dishonest way he’s been promoted.

The fact Murtha is an ex-marine has been used time and time again as a shield against criticism, as an excuse to falsely claim he’s a hawk, and to prop up his credibility when he calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Setting aside the fact that Murtha has now said he: wouldn’t join the Marines again…actually, let’s not set it aside. If Murtha doesn’t think the Marines are worth joining today, maybe he should stop throwing his military service in everyone’s face. Better yet, maybe the press could actually give ex-Marines who do support the war and still like the service, as much attention and respect as that blowhard, John Murtha.

Defining Quote:: “(It’s) baffling that [John Murtha] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party…The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists.” –: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan

4) Ward Churchill

How could we make it through all the most annoying liberals of 2005 without mentioning the biggest walking, talking example of what’s wrong with our education system, pseudo-Indian hippy professor Ward Churchill?

Here we have a rabidly anti-American lunatic, who has endorsed fragging, compared the people who lost their lives in 9/11 to Adolf Eichman, and who has been accused of lying about being an Indian, copyright infringement, plagiarism, and simply making up research.

Yet, what does this guy, who is undoubtedly one of the most fetid pieces of human garbage walking the planet today, do for a living? He teaches young, impressionable college students. Even though his own university board of regents has “apologize(d) to all Americans” for the things he has said, they still insist on keeping him on as a professor where his students will continue to be exposed to statements like this one:

“Defining Quote:: For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who’s already been inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal. But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn’t conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?”

3) The New York Times

Judging by the way they’ve covered the war on terror, if the New York Times had been around during the Revolutionary War, we would have seen headlines like, “Washington’s Secret Battle Plans,” “A List of the Most Prominent Patriot Sympathizers,” and “The Minutemen: One Man’s Freedom Fighter is Another Man’s Terrorist.”

Certainly the NYT would deny deliberately trying to undermine the war in Iraq and hinder our intelligence operations against Al-Qaeda in every way possible, but whether that’s their goal or not, the result has been the same.

The New York Times started off 2005 by calling for the January elections in Iraq to be postponed and then went from there to deliberately trying to scuttle a classified CIA program used to transport Al-Qaeda. That had to be what they were doing since they published lots of unnecessary details like plane tail numbers and the shell companies that were used. Then, in December, the NYT pointed out to Al-Qaeda and the rest of the world the existence of a classified NSA program that listened in on phone calls between the Jihadi and their American pals. This was despite the fact that President Bush personally asked them not to run the story for national security reasons.

Al-Qaeda should send them a thank-you card.

Defining Quote:: “America spends $40 billion per year on intelligence operations aimed at discovering our enemies’ secret activities. All our enemies have to do is subscribe to the New York Times and, for as little as $4.65 per week, they can discover most of our secret operations — at least as long as a Republican is President.

Granted, reading the Times won’t give them an accurate picture of the growth of the U.S. economy, the progress in the Iraq War, or the average American’s political opinions. But it will provide them a detailed description of almost any classified military, CIA, or NSA operation designed to catch or kill them.” –: Mac Johnson

2) Howard Dean

What do you do with a front runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency who was ultimately rejected by your own party’s voters for saying too many wacky things? If you’re the Democrats, you make him your party chairman and send him all over the country to speak in front of the press.

And oh boy, did old “Mad How” have a lot to say! There was the time Howard Dean in essence said Republicans were evil:

“This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.” —Howard Dean

At one point or another, Dean also added that: Republicans: were: ‘Evil,’: ‘Corrupt,’and: ‘Brain-Dead.’

Gee, it’s almost as if you’re a Republican, Howard Dean is going out of his way to let you know that he really, really, despises you. Perhaps Dean’s loathing of Republicans explains why he was willing to undercut the troops in the field by declaring that they can’t win in an effort to stick it to a Republican President:

Defining Quote:: “(The) idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.” –: Howard Dean

1) Cindy Sheehan

How did an uninteresting, not particularly well informed woman, with wacky liberal views manage to become the biggest story in America this summer? By deftly wielding the corpse of her own son like a light saber to deflect criticism, gain attention, and fatten her own pockets.

Here’s woman who used her dead son as a hook to get attention from the press, as well as a book deal, and more than $10,000 a speech. Meanwhile, she demanded that the President meet with her a second time, that America change its foreign policy because she said so, and spewed out obnoxious quote after quote all while her supporters, who were referring to her as the “Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement“, were demanding that no one ever be allowed to disagree with her or criticize her because she lost her son in the war.

As Sheehan’s 15 minutes of fame stretched on, she rarely: missed a chance to make an idiot of herself. She got into a public fight with her son’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins who didn’t agree with her views, got divorced from her husband after they had a falling out over her anti-war activities, did a Vanity Fair photo op: laying on her son’s grave, said America,: “is not worth dying for,”: opposed the war in Afghanistan, suggested the war in Iraq was really about protecting Israel, said she had: “no animosity for“: the person who killed her son (but she’s angry at Bush), claimed terrorists going into Iraq were,: “freedom fighters,”: and referred to other moms who lost children in Iraq but disagreed with her as, “continue the murder and mayhem moms“….whew! She’s been busy, hasn’t she?

Yet, her supporters huffily demand that she should never be called on her ludicrous stances and beliefs, despite the fact that the mainstream media trumpets what she has to say, because she lost a son. So the other parents who’ve lost sons and daughters in this war, especially those,: “continue the murder and mayhem moms,”: when do they get equal time from the media?

Never.

Apparently, only Saint Cindy’s views deserve to be mentioned while her detractors are expected to listen to this sort of drek about “Mother Sheehan” without comment:

“Defining Quote:: For those of us who don’t truly believe in god, she is truly a gift that we must not f*ck up under anyway shape or form. For all of you Jesus believers, she should be looked upon by you as a true savior. For Budhist, she is about true, unconditional love. For Muslims, she wants to stop the pain against your people. She has united this world from love, and there is no greater power then a mother’s love of her child. I know, mine are my life, my soul, my joy and my acomplishments. If anyone would harm them, I would die and want to take down whoever did this. She is justified in her anger, beyond any man can truly understand. She is our Martin Luther King, Bobby K, she is a start of a movement. We don’t get these chances very often because the world is asleep at the wheel.